1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system and in particular to a method and apparatus for managing data in a distributed data processing system. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for backing up data in computers within a distributed data processing system.
2. Description of Related Art
In today's computing environment in which the maintenance of data is essential to many business functions, backup storage devices provide a low cost storage onto which computers connected to storage devices can create backup copies of files for later recovery if the original files on the computers are lost or corrupted.
All of the data and applications on all storage media and all nodes or clients of a network should be periodically backed up to allow restoration of files that may become corrupted or destroyed because of hardware or software failures that cause files to be inadvertently deleted or changed.
Presently, backup utility programs are present for multi user systems, network file servers, and work stations, which copy program and data files, usually in a compressed structure, onto backup media, such as, for example, magnetic tapes or optical disks. Typically, most backup programs allow disk backup or selective backup of files based on a file directory tree and a variety of file selection criteria.
Typically, data is copied from a first computer to a primary storage device and subsequently from a primary storage device to a lower cost, higher density secondary storage device, such as a magnetic tape or optical disk. This type of procedure is commonly known as “backing up” the system. In an environment where multiple personal computers or workstations are networked together, it is burdensome to back up each computer individually because a backup of the computer is typically initiated by a person. At times, that person may forget to back up a computer and if the data has been lost or corrupted, the data may be irretrievable because no archive or copy of the data is present. Typically, a network administrator or other information systems manager will oversee the backup of computers to check that each machine is backed up on a regular basis. Such an approach is labor intensive and burdensome.
In many network systems, the workstations or nodes in the system do not have individual tape drives for backup. As a result, any backup of data from these types of network computers must be sent to a control workstation or other server for storage. With a large installation, tens or even hundreds of computers may be present. Each of these computers will have hard disk capacities, which may be measured in hundreds of megabytes. Backing up of such systems may provide a significant challenge in avoiding significant network bottlenecks.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have an effective method and apparatus for backing up computers in a network.